Most processed foods, which can be eaten after just being heated by a microwave oven, are sold in a seasoned condition. In addition, some of such processed foods, before being heated, must either (1) have water sprayed thereon or (2) be dipped in water—either of which is troublesome—so that the food will be prevented from drying out due to the evaporation of the moisture therein as a result of their being heated. In order to prevent the food from drying due to heating, the food should be heated in a tightly sealed container. However, when such food is heated in such a sealed container, there is a risk that the container can break because the pressure in the sealed container becomes high. Therefore, how to release the vapor pressure that is generated is a problem. To solve that problem, a container for heating precooked foods is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 2000-238860. That container comprises (1) a container body, and (2) a cover that has a ventilation hole and a folded part. The container is constituted in such a way that (1) the ventilation hole is sealed by adhering the folded part onto a flat part of the cover, and (2) the adhered folded part is exfoliated due to the vapor pressure that is generated inside the container when it is heated. Even if the container body is shaped like a cup, plate, or box, the cover is heat-sealed onto the peripheral part of the body, so as to discharge the vapor pressure through the folded part. However, there has not yet been proposed a container for cooking foods that is constituted such that its cover is made so to be easily opened after cooking, nor is there an invention that constitutes a container for cooking foods that is appropriate for all types of foods.
The present invention has been made taking the above into consideration. One object of the present invention is to provide a container for cooking foods (1) that enables cooking to be performed while maintaining the appropriate moisture content of the foods, and (2) that can be opened easily. Another object of this invention is to provide a container for cooking foods that includes, as a separate member, a seasoning means that (1) enables the original taste of foods to be brought out to the fullest extent, (2) automatically seasons the foods, so that it is not necessary to manually season them, and (3) is easily removable from the container.